Well, a bunch of us celebrated my leaving with a "few" drinks at Bar de Baz on Ponsonby Road in Auckland. We had a few warm up drinks first in Ellerslie after work, and then met up to party later on.

Much drinking, much dancing and a little chundering. Nice

Thanks to everyone who came out and made it a great night!

 

There are pictures floating around, but luckily I don't have any just yet.

 

Only 1 week left in New Zealand! It's all come a bit quick really and I've still got a few things to sort out!

On Sunday I finally received an offer on the car, I'm not sure whether to accept it or not as it's a little bit low but I guess I don't have much of a choice really!

Saturday was a much more pleasant day, I drove down to Raglan, a surfing village 2 hours south of Auckland, (think Bryon Bay as it's supposed to be) and had an awesome time kiting there in some of the most butter like smooth water New Zealand has to offer!
Awesome. And I even managed to get someone to take a photo of me! Even better!

  Me doing a front roll

  Ian goes for a nosebone

In an attempt to maximise the time I have left in NZ, I spent the whole weekend at Muriwai beach! Yay for me!
Saturday was a stormer, with 20 knots all day. Sunday was lighter but still awesome fun.

Perrin was using his buggy to rip up the beach and frankly he scares me with the speeds he reaches. He claimed 60km/h on Sunday according to his GPS! Wow.

I took my camera this time, and took a few more shots. Sadly these didn't come out all that well, but still good enough to give an impression!

Other beach users

Perrin gets some air on his buggy!

James goes "styling"

Mike gets some air

The weekend just gone was a bit of a mixed bag. I spent Saturday standing at the beach with a bunch of fellow kitesurfers waiting for the rain to stop and the wind to pick up. 5 hours spent huddling around the mens toilet block (it's the only building nearby) staring into space whilst the weather continually looked like it was about to change for the better.
By 2 o'clock, whilst we were still laughing and having a good time, we made the call that it wasn't going to happen and went home.
Sunday turned out to be one of the better days of the year. Mostly sunny and the wind built from 12 knots to 25 knots by 2 o'clock. I had some friends from work, Helene and Sam, come along for a lesson and they couldn't have picked a better day. By the end of Sunday they were both working the kite and having a great time. Meanwhile I splashed around with my usual lack of style and generally caused havoc in the water.
No photos sadly as we were all too busy having a good time to even think of bringing out a camera.

Last night Paul and I went for an hour session at snowplanet. I finally landed a big 180 and Paul worked on some rails.

Me hitting a ramp


  Paul works on a rail

Jarrod, a friend of mine from work, was kind enough to invite me to come Mountain Biking with him over the weekend. He even lent me his old bike so I had no excuse not to turn up!

A group of us travelled to the local bike trails, a place called Woodhill just around the corner from my normal kiting haunt Muriwai. $5 later and we were in the best and most fun trails I've ever ridden. Just the right amount of uphill and downhill sections with plenty of apparatus to play with as you went around. I even tried a few (small) jumps! Awesome fun.

Kylie shows us how it's done

Jarrod takes on a see-saw

Todd takes on a ramp

I try something a little less hardcore!

Todd goes big

Jarrod tries something a bit more technical!

Mike and Jarrod after a good morning!